Recently, for the efficiency of works in an office, an information processing apparatuses provided in the office are connected via a LAN (Local Area Network) installed in the office. A facsimile machine receives facsimile data which has been sent via a public telecommunication network from another facsimile machine. This facsimile machine converts the received facsimile data to an e-mail for a personal destination and transmits this e-mail to an information processing terminal on the LAN to which the facsimile machine is connected.
Unexamined Japanese Patent Publication No. Hei 6-164645 discloses a facsimile communication system which performs such facsimile communications.
FIG. 29 schematically illustrates the facsimile communication system disclosed in the Unexamined Japanese Patent Publication No. Hei 6-164645. A plurality of information processing terminals 182-1, 182-2 and 182-3 and a network connection type facsimile machine (NETFAX) 183 are connected to a LAN 181. The NETFAX 183 connects to an ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network).
Another facsimile machine scans a transmission original to read the image data of the original. The image data read by this facsimile machine is sent to the information processing terminal 182-1 on the LAN via the ISDN 184. The facsimile machine transmits the image data via the ISDN 184 to the NETFAX 183 on the LAN with the telephone number of the NETFAX 183. At this time, the e-mail address of the information processing terminal 182-1 is set to a subaddress included in a number informing service provided by the ISDN and is transmitted simultaneously.
Upon reception of image data from the facsimile machine, the NETFAX 183 converts the received image data to the transmission format of an e-mail and sends it to the e-mail address of the information processing terminal 182-1 that has been input as the subaddress. In an existing e-mail system built on the LAN 181, an e-mail affixed with image data to be facsimiled is temporarily saved at a relay site or a reception site. That is, in the process of transmitting an e-mail (facsimile data including image data) to the information processing terminal 182-1 from the NETFAX 183, the e-mail including image data is temporarily saved at a relay site or a reception site on the network.
As facsimile data is image data read from a transmission original, however, it has a large data size. If facsimile data is color image data, the data size becomes larger. Facsimile data with a large data size has a problem of greatly using up the capacities of a relay site and a reception site.
In the case where the NETFAX 183 makes multi-casting of an e-mail of facsimile data to multiple information processing terminals on the network, the facsimile data which has a larger data size than an ordinary e-mail is transmitted to every site, there is a problem of increasing the traffic of the network.